Just when you think you may have seen everything in family history…this happens!
Grant and Ella when she married my grandfather Smith, 1904
Thanks to a new genealogy friend for this latest exciting bit of my family history…
Out of the blue, yesterday, in my secondary genealogy email account:
“Mate Kinnick’s daughter (Mabel Jones) married Joe Ballard, the son of Martin Luther Ballard with his first wife. Martin’s son (by his second wife) was Monty Ballard – your grandmother’s first husband. It is a small world.” under a simple subject line, “Ballard connection.”
Kinnick is my mother’s side of my family. I’ve done very extensive research there, and Mate is a daughter of Joseph Kinnick, brother of my great-great grandfather, Walter Watson Kinnick. She lived in Wyoming/Montana around 1900, and was always, until recently, a very mysterious person to me, but her name was most familiar.
The mention of “Monty Ballard” - that is my father’s side of my family. He was the first husband of my Dad’s mother…he died in 1900, very young - climbing on a ladder doing Christmas Tree lights, it is said, fell off, hit it head, and died - their first son was only a few months old. She married my grandfather a few years later and they had several children. They raised that first son, Grant, of course. We never knew a lot about his family, except they had lived in Nebraska.
It turns out that Monty’s father was Martin Luther Ballard, and he had two families. Monty was a son of the second family. In Montana, in 1913, a grandson of the first marriage married the daughter of Mate Kinnick. Note that Joe was a grandson, not a son of Martin Luther Ballard…that made confirmation of this information a fun exercise!! Ha! Small world, for sure.
Just had to share. Have you had an experience like this? A first for me. Always something new coming up. What fun!! ;-)
P.S. There is always 'more to the story' of course. Monty's younger sister was an active suffragette.
Both she and their father were life-long active lawyers. Here are their stories...
Grace: https://www.findagrave.com/
Her father: Martin Luther: https://www.findagrave.com/
Her brother: Monte: https://www.findagrave.com/
Families are Forever! ;-)
